▼ Genderfuck is a performative gender critique. It is sometimes playful, sometimes serious, and always political. Genderfuck empowers artists to critique binaried gender through performance. Using four case studies, I suggest that genderfuck is part of a larger drag history, operated as a precursor to contemporary nonbinary gender performance, and continues to be accessed and activated through drag aesthetics. I locate genderfuck as a gender identity in 1970s San Francisco, with artists like gay poet Harmodius in Exile, and his lover and photographer, David Greene. Later, I track RuPaul?s early performance work in 1980s Atlanta through a genderfuck framework, aided by his autobiographies and publicity posters. Turning to contemporary examples, I examine the inaugural issue of Queen magazine to discover Alaska Thunderfuck?s direct citing of genderfuck RuPaul in the issue?s cover image, Violet Chachki?s queer exploration of French photographer Pierre Molinier in an editorial spread, and Cheddar Gorgeous, a Manchester-based genderfuck queen. I close with a study of Andrea Gibson, a queer poet currently publishing and touring in the US. I suggest their work is queered by their trans* status, and that Gibson uses genderfuck aesthetics to situate their poetry politically within a feminist paradigm.
Advisors/Committee Members: Pullen, Kirsten (advisor), Dox, Donnalee (committee member), Morey, Anne (committee member).

► This study examines the feminism of Viola Spolin, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, and Amy Schumer, all of whom, in some capacity, are involved in…
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▼ This study examines the feminism of Viola Spolin, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, and Amy
Schumer, all of whom, in some capacity, are involved in the contemporary practice and performance of feminist comedy. Using various feminist texts as tools, the author contextually and theoretically situates the women within particular feminist ideologies, reading their texts, representations, and performances as nuanced feminist assertions. Building upon her own experiences and sensations of being a fan, the author theorizes these comedic practitioners in relation to their audiences, their fans, influencing the ways in which young feminist relate to themselves, each other, their mentors, and their role models. Their articulations, in other words, affect the ways feminism is contemporarily conceived, and sometimes, humorously and contentiously advocated.
Advisors/Committee Members: Pullen , Kirsten (advisor), Ball, James (committee member), Poirot , Kristan (committee member).

► As Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom draw to a close, Americans are curious to learn more about soldier experiences during wartime. War memorials…
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▼ As Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom draw to a close, Americans are curious to learn more about soldier experiences during wartime. War memorials document public war memories and how the masses relate to war, while personal war narratives rely on performance vessels, such as plays, autobiographical novels, and movies to reach an audience. Texas A&MUniversity?s rich military history relies on war memories to serve as a cultural cornerstone to produce an ?Aggie? identity. At Texas A&M, both the public and private sectors of war memories are available through performances ranging from memorials such as the Memorial Student Center to the 2014 staged performance of The Telling Project?s Telling Aggieland.
In this MA thesis, based on ethnographic fieldwork with Texas A&MUniversity?s Memorial Student Center and veterans involved with Telling Aggieland, I explore the intersection between the public and private sectors of war memories. By examining the history of the MSC as well as student interactions with the building, I explore the public performance of the war memorial and how spectators negotiate these memories into their own (often civilian) lives. Additionally, fieldnotes from the performance process of Telling Aggieland, as well as interviews with participants, informs my understanding of how the performance of personal war narratives bridges gaps between veterans and civilians, while also serving as a therapeutic healing process. Combining my fieldwork of the MSC with my ethnographic interviews with veteran performers, I investigate how performance in the public and private sectors
Advisors/Committee Members: Pullen, Kirsten (advisor), Donkor, David (committee member), Eide, Marian (committee member).

► After a brutal and widely publicized gang rape in December 2012, women?s safety in public spaces has been a significant site of debate and discourse…
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▼ After a brutal and widely publicized gang rape in December 2012, women?s safety in public spaces has been a significant site of debate and discourse about Delhi as a city and India as a country. My Master?s thesis focuses on women?s negotiations of public spaces in Delhi, India. I explore how women in general?and activists in particular?shift Delhi?s public culture, in order to intervene in dominant discourses on women?s agency in India?s capital as well as the dismissive, alienating narratives of the city as hopelessly violent. Jagori, a Delhi-based women?s rights organization, sponsors ?The Safe Delhi Campaign? to address the constraints on and challenges of women?s Delhi street experience with a focus on urban design, public transport, and raising public awareness. My project brings a Performance Studies perspective to Jagori?s goals, paying close attention to my interlocutors? (university-aged female residents and Jagori activists) voices, bodies, and tactics. Fear and the anticipation of violence shapes when, where, and how female residents move through Delhi: the spatial and temporal safe, cautionary, and forbidden zones, bridged by acceptable forms of transportation, expose how fear fractures the map. I argue that my interlocutors are negotiating their own comfort against social expectations and the potential for violence in public. Female embodiment in rape cultures is marked by the anticipation of violence, where sexual assault indicates a failure to adhere to the preventative regime. That fearful embodiment manifests in the everyday practices of managing the dominant male street culture in Delhi. I explore protests post-Dec-12 as my interlocutors experienced them, arguing that some protests disrupt the normative Delhi public culture, creating a temporary atmosphere in which women can more freely move and express themselves, where that fear fades or disappears. Hopeful and future-oriented protests call for the women?s full access to public spaces without fear. From the everyday self-policing, restrictive tactics of female university students to activists occupying the streets in attention-grabbing protests, how Delhi?s women are responding to the threat of violence exposes the everyday lived reality, juxtaposed contradictions, and enduring potential of the capital city.
Advisors/Committee Members: Pullen, Kirsten (advisor), Beaster-Jones, Jayson (committee member), Putcha, Rumya (committee member), Vaid, Jyotsna (committee member).

► Through a combination of personal interviews and participant-observation in three field sites ? the Tim Miller workshop and performance of October 2010 and the student…
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▼ Through a combination of personal interviews and participant-observation in three field sites ? the Tim Miller workshop and performance of October 2010 and the student organizations Cepheid Variable and the GLBT Aggies ? I argue that manifestations of utopian desire and performance circulate within and among marginalized groups on the Texas A&MUniversity campus, undermining the heteronormative and monolithic utopia the university attempts to present. I participated in each night of rehearsal during the Tim Miller workshop, as well as the creation and performance of my own solo autobiographical monologue as a part of the ensemble. My participant-observation in Cepheid Variable and the GLBT Aggies was concurrent, consisting of attendance at both weekly organizational meetings and outside events sponsored by the organizations over two years.
I argue that the Tim Miller workshop and performance is best understood by examining the intersection of queer intimacy, utopia, and performance. I argue that processes of connection, sharing, and mutual transformation allowed it to function as an example of queer utopian performance qua performance at Texas A&M.
I explore the links between the ?nerd,? ?queer,? and ?family? identities of Cepheid Variable, arguing that the intersection of these identity-markers and the performance practices which reinforce them enable Cepheid Variable to create a utopian space on the Texas A&M campus for those students who do not fit traditional notions of Aggie identity. I explore two Cepheid performance practices: noise-making and storytelling, arguing that they construct, support, and interweave each element of Cepheid identity, allowing the organization to perpetuate and reaffirm its utopian and counterpublic statuses at Texas A&M.
I explore what the GLBT Aggies claims to provide in theory, juxtaposed with what it actually accomplishes in practice. I examine a moment of crisis the LGBTQ community at Texas A&M faced in spring 2011. I argue that the utopia the GLBTA promises remains unfulfilled because the marginalization of the LGBTQ community at large leaves diversity within that community unaddressed.
I conclude that utopian communities persist if able to adapt, and that the strength of the intimacy built into queer utopias in particular sustains them through time.
Advisors/Committee Members: Hamera, Judith (advisor), Pullen, Kirsten (committee member), Jewell, Joseph O. (committee member).

► War and war-fighters have become immortalized through performance; generations of service-men and women are defined by actions on the battlefield artfully altered on stage and…
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▼ War and war-fighters have become immortalized through performance; generations of service-men and women are defined by actions on the battlefield artfully altered on stage and screen. This reciprocal relationship, whether war-fighters intentionally participate or not, has imbued the entertainment industry with the power to characterize war-fighters in lasting ways. Performance enters the military in other ways as well: war-fighters reenact moments from war films; combat training takes on theatrical tactics and rhetoric; war-fighters of the War on Terror record and stage their own war performances.
We accept that current war performances will inevitably affect the perception and reputation of war-fighters, not only for the duration of the war but for decades afterward, but do we fully understand the cost of the relationship between today's war-fighters and performance's role in the military? In this MA thesis, based on ethnographic fieldwork with veterans of the War on Terror, I explore the intersection between war-fighters, war, and performance. By examining how veterans relate to cinematic and stage performances of war, I will discuss how war-fighters of the War on Terror use performance to surrogate their warrior identities, to train for and defer the war experience, and to produce their own war performances. Combining my ethnographic fieldwork with archival film and play research, I illuminate how performance constitutes and challenges the war-fighter?s identities in the War on Terror.
Advisors/Committee Members: Pullen, Kirsten (advisor), Hamera, Judith (committee member), Dawson, Joseph G. (committee member).

► There is a discursive formation of incapability that surrounds senior women's sexuality. Senior women are incapable of reproduction, mastering their bodies, or arousing sexual desire…
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▼ There is a discursive formation of incapability that surrounds senior women's sexuality. Senior women are incapable of reproduction, mastering their bodies, or arousing sexual desire in themselves or others. The senior actresses' I explore in the case studies below insert their performances of self and their everyday lives into the large and complicated discourse of sex, producing a counter-narrative to sexually inactive senior women. Their performances actively embody their sexuality outside the frame of a character.
This thesis examines how senior actresses' performances of sexuality extend a discourse of sexuality imposed on older woman by mass media. These women are the public face of senior women's sexual agency. The women I use as case studies are crucial because they perform sexually on screen as well as in their everyday lives. Their personae engage and intervene in the discursive formation of incapability outside traditional modes of performance. The performances of Kirstie Alley, Cloris Leachman Joan Rivers and Betty White transgress the invisible but well documented boundary between bodies that can be sexed and bodies that can't. Transgressing this boundary allows these older actresses to become active agents in their sexual lives.
Sexual confessions, performances of personae, and citations of previous senior women performers facilitate senior women's sexual performances. The case studies that follow illustrate how these elements work together to create sexual representations of senior women that are not always accepted by audiences, but are still able to intervene into the larger discourse of senior women's sexual incapability.
Advisors/Committee Members: Pullen, Kirsten (advisor), Hamera, Judith (committee member), Berger, Harry (committee member), Bendixen, Alfred (committee member).

► This thesis is a multi-sited survey providing insight into integral performing arts institutions and how they engage in the distribution of cosmopolitan cultural capital to…
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▼ This thesis is a multi-sited survey providing insight into integral performing arts institutions and how they engage in the distribution of cosmopolitan cultural capital to middlebrow audiences. It additionally provides a taxonomy of the different types of performances present across three sites: MSC OPAS, Arts Midwest, and the Association of Performing Arts Presenters? Annual Conference in New York (APAP/NYC). My research methods include ethnography, interviewing, and textual analysis, but my investigation of these sites began with several leading questions: How do audiences read live performances for cosmopolitanism? How is that cosmopolitanism produced in key performing arts organizations? How is performance both a product that is marketed to venues and audiences and the means of marketing itself?
Cosmopolitanism is an integral component to marketing, delivering, and enjoying live touring commercial performances. Performing arts presenters like OPAS, and presenting organizations, including Arts Midwest and APAP, engage cosmopolitanism on multiple levels as they work to provide regional audiences with otherwise unattainable ?world-class? performances. Cosmopolitanism is present and presented every step of the way and the industry continues to advance cosmopolitan goals. This works shifts from analyzing cosmopolitan tourists to understanding touring cosmopolitanism because touring performances provide cosmopolitan cultural capital to community audiences located outside these urban centers. Touring performances provide opportunities for residents outside large metropolitan areas to engage in a global culture of performance and insert themselves into an imagined community of cosmopolitans. This is due in part to touring artists who deliver ?world-class? performances to audiences that would otherwise entirely lack a connection to arts opportunities that accompany metropolitan centers and cosmopolitan communities.
Cosmopolitanism is operationalized in performances of rurality, organizational culture and sociability, and exoticizing marketing strategies. I not only explore how cosmopolitanism is operationalized across these sites, but also how performance, in several of its variations, is operationalized, negotiated, and, of course, presented. More specifically, I examine artistic, interpersonal, organizational, and economic performances, as they are present across the three sites.
Advisors/Committee Members: Hamera, Judith (advisor), La Pastina, Antonio (committee member), Pullen, Kirsten (committee member).

► For years Black women?s subjectivity in the use of their bodies and movements has been overshadowed or completely erased by dominant hegemonic systems that created…
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▼ For years Black women?s subjectivity in the use of their bodies and movements has been overshadowed or completely erased by dominant hegemonic systems that created its own narrative of Black women, their bodies, and their movement. This thesis works to acknowledge and analyze the dialogic relationship among the narratives of Black women, Black women?s performances of their ?theories of the flesh? through dance as well as their everyday activities, and the race, gender, and class conditions that inform said ?theories of the flesh.?
During football season, everyone in the African-American community of Jackson, Mississippi is looking at and talking about the dance company, the Prancing JSettes. There are audience members who critique their movements and costumes and there are those who view the group as a vital part of the community. Either way every audience member is captivated by the J-Settes because their cultural history is depicted by the women?s performance. How does this work? How is the Prancing J-Sette image constructed and by whom, and why and how does it persist? These are the questions I ask to examine the gender, class, and racial relations that are inscribed upon the movements of Black women in the African Diaspora.
For a group whose African ancestors viewed dance as very spiritual, with such activities as the ring shout, it is interesting to note the ambivalence that surrounds the public dancing body in Jackson, Mississippi. While some Jacksonians view the female body in the public sphere with a Protestant Christian lens, they also enjoy the Africana aesthetics and aggressive energy of the J-Settes? performances. Also, while the J-Settes buck their society?s hegemonic system of propriety, they also comply with some of these standards in their performance. I examine this ambivalence through the discourses of critical race theory, Black feminism, the social significance of African Diaspora dance conventions and HBCUs, and the classed, racial, and gendered power relations in the African Diaspora. I argue that the stories about the Prancing J-Settes can be expanded to present a genealogy and present state of contradictory values and issues of visibility affecting all Black women.
Advisors/Committee Members: Hamera, Judith (advisor), Bendixen, Alfred (committee member), Donkor, David (committee member), Pullen, Kirsten (committee member).

► Queer fandoms on tumblr aid in the formation of identity and the self. As a micro-blogging website, tumblr works to create a constantly expanding archive…
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▼ Queer fandoms on tumblr aid in the formation of identity and the self. As a micro-blogging website, tumblr works to create a constantly expanding archive of each user?s posts, and thus can potentially document the development of the self. Some of its users may be undergoing a shift in queer identity and thus be seeking others, fictional or real, who are undergoing the same thing. Other users have already undergone this shift and are using fandom in order negotiate and manage this change in self identity. The queer self is one frequently contested both by society and the individual. Tumblr aids in the fight against heteronormativity, and archives the acts of identity formation. Queer fandom provides a doorway directly to a fictional queer character, or characters, who can help to assemble a user?s self and provide an anchor, drawing other like users together.
In this thesis I use my position as an indigenous member of the tumblr community to navigate female-orientated queer fandoms. I investigate user?s interactions with fandom characters, fandom relationships and each other, in order to show how tumblr can be a way to assemble and display the self. By examining posts from a range of fandoms I am able to examine the way users assemble aspects of the self. I discuss the difficulties of representation on television faced by queer women, and how fandoms can provide users a lens through which they can see an aspect of their self that is often closeted by society, or even closeted by the user themselves. I have found that users take to tumblr to assemble aspects of their self. Through their interactions with shows, characters, and each other, users are able to discover fragments of the self, new and old, and use tumblr to display these fragments. I can therefore conclude that for members of tumblr that reside within female-orientated queer fandoms tumblr has provided them with a space where they can negotiate their identity, and collect and assemble aspects of the self.
Advisors/Committee Members: Pullen, Kirsten (advisor), Gatson, Sarah N. (committee member), Hamera, Judith (committee member).

▼ Opera divas are stereotypically temperamental, but many singers learn diva behaviors through Euro-classical vocal pedagogy. Two conditions of opera vocal training contribute to performances of diva identity. First, opera singers are intimately tied to their characters through the music; they develop their voices in order to perform that music. Secondly, characters, thus opera divas, exist forever in their most excessive, vulnerable states. Consequently, the diva persona is not innate, but a Butlerian performativity. In this thesis, I explore how Euro-classical vocal practice marks and teaches heteronormativity in female opera singers. In addition, I survey how Euro-classical vocal training informs current opera divas? relationships to the institution of Euro-classical opera throughout their singing career.
In my critique, I use contemporary events in opera, vocal pedagogical texts, ethnography, and my own embodied knowledge informed by my Euro-classical vocal training. I will first detail the many facets that challenge a unified ?diva? persona by considering past methods used to theorize ?diva? and the legacy of the diva in the Euro-classical music tradition. I continue by analyzing vocal pedagogical texts, detailing the many ways teachers, composers, and singers trained and train the voice, and thus train the diva persona. Finally, I consider how three singers? rhetorically construct themselves using the diva image as reference. I do this in order to explain the many ways in which Euro-classical vocal pedagogy problematically relegates the female body and voice.
Advisors/Committee Members: Pullen, Kirsten (advisor), Berger, Harris (committee member), Humphrey, Daniel (committee member), Kattari, Kimberley (committee member).